


the compliments of honest men

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Extra Treat, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-30 19:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8546746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: “You look okay to me.” Honestly, Lando looked better than okay to Luke most days, but that wasn’t something he was willing to admit to. Yet.Though Lando’s smile dialed itself back, it seemed all the more warm and genuine for having done so. “Ringing endorsement right there.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mnemosyne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemosyne/gifts).



“Kid, there’s only so much moping around I’m willing to look at before I pull out a sabacc deck from inside my sleeve and find myself laughing all the way to the bank,” Lando said, leaning in the doorway of the miniscule kitchen unit, his arms crossed over his chest. He’d lost the cape somewhere, lost the whole getup actually. The beige of the shirt, the brown of the pants… they suited him poorly, but Luke didn’t know why that might be at first.

Squinting, Luke peered up at him. “Are those Han’s clothes?”

“It offends my sensibilities, too,” Lando replied, his hand waving about to indicate a request to be allowed entrance. Luke nodded, though he didn’t particularly want company, because Lando could come and go as he pleased. If Luke truly wanted solitude, he should have stayed in his bunk. “Did you know he’s got three of everything and it all looks the same? Unbelievable.”

A rusty smile creaked to life across Luke’s face, awkward and half-hearted. It wasn’t Lando’s fault that Luke was in a mood, but it was still impossible to match Lando’s poise and good cheer. “I don’t think Han cares for fashion,” Luke said, gouging his nails into the table at which he sat. Not that it did any good, being made out of dingy, dented old metal and all. There was nothing his hand could do to it. Not without a weapon or a tool; Luke couldn’t deny that one or the other sounded good right now.

His real hand anyway. The prosthetic? Luke wasn’t sure yet what _it_ could do. And he was a little scared to find out.

“You’re not wrong about that,” Lando said, wrapping his hands around the back of the chair across from Luke. It twisted beneath his palms, left, then right, before he spun it completely around and sat astride it, arms settling onto the backrest, his chin resting on his arms. Han—or whoever—had soldered it to the floor just a little too close to the table so that it scraped a little against the edge. While Luke winced, Lando remained cool, features betraying nothing. “Should’ve stopped off somewhere before I picked you up.”

“You look okay to me.” Honestly, Lando looked better than okay to Luke most days, but that wasn’t something he was willing to admit to. Yet.

Though Lando’s smile dialed itself back, it seemed all the more warm and genuine for having done so. “Ringing endorsement right there.”

Luke rolled his eyes, tapping thoughtfully at the tabletop. “You know what I mean.”

For a moment, Lando found said tabletop just about the most interesting thing in the galaxy if the way he stared at it was any indication. But then he lifted his head, eyes finding Luke’s, as serious as Luke had ever seen them. “I know. Thank you.”

A fraught silence fell between them, not completely uncomfortable, but not exactly comfortable either, not by Luke’s standards of comfort anyway. Something too much like possibility grew up in that silence, need and want tethering itself to the edges and stretching across the whole of it. It made Luke’s skin itch, made him want to fidget like he used to do in school, back when school was a thing he did.

Jedi training didn’t count, he thought. Not enough time to sit around and fidget. And Yoda had quickly cured him of the urge to fidget at those moments when there was enough time to do just that.

 _Wish I could manage that here,_ he thought.

“So what gives?” Lando asked finally, doing for Luke what Luke couldn’t do for himself, breaking the standoff with a kind, if distant, interest, like he wasn’t entirely sure it would be welcome and he didn’t want to press too hard. _You can talk to me_ , he seemed to say, without saying any of those words at all. _You can count on me_.

Whether it was because Lando felt it necessary to make up for what happened on Cloud City, Luke couldn’t say—and he wouldn’t judge Lando one way or the other on that count. The Empire was the one ultimately at fault here. Even if Lando hadn’t complied, hadn’t tried to make a deal for his people, Vader would have gotten what he wanted out of him. The fact that Lando—and the citizens of Cloud City—had made it out mostly unscathed was a testament to Lando’s instincts.

 _Vader_.

His father.

What a nightmare.

“Oh,” Luke said, “it’s just been a long day. You’d think a kid from Tatooine might be a little better at finding a person stuck on Tatooine is all.”

Lando tilted his head back and forth slightly, mouth twisting thoughtfully. “Tatooine’s as big a planet as anyplace else,” he answered, equanimity casting his words in soothing tones. “And it’s got a criminal underbelly bigger than most.”

“Yeah,” Luke said, more a sigh than an agreement.

“We’ll find him, Luke,” Lando said, more certain than Luke had ever heard him, more fierce. The way he spoke, anyone would be forgiven for believing whatever he said. And Luke wasn’t immune to it. Hearing him say that let Luke indulge in an optimism he found harder and harder to grasp as the days wore on, no closer to finding Han than they were on that first day.

_What if Han wasn’t even on Tatooine? What if Jabba’s smarter than we are? What if…_

Lando snapped his fingers in Luke’s face, not startling him exactly, but surprising him at the very least. “Hey, now,” he said, firm. “None of that. We _will_ find him. Don’t you start thinking we won’t.”

“Okay, okay.” Luke batted Lando’s hand to the side, a slight smile forming on his face at the ridiculousness of the situation. “Sorry. We’ll find him.” And somehow even just saying it made him feel better. “I know we will. Thank you, Lando.”

“Good. That’s better.” Lando shifted slightly, waved Luke’s gratitude off like it wasn’t necessary— _not true,_ Luke thought—and resettled his arms on the chair’s back. “You know, I think I prefer it when you smile.”

That, much to Luke’s embarrassment, just made him smile even wider. Selfish, perhaps, at a time like this, but necessary, too. As he ducked his head, a weight lifted from his shoulders, lightness and focus replacing it—at least for the moment.

A moment was worth everything.

One day, Luke will have to let Lando know how grateful he will have been for this, for Lando’s steady presence, but for now…

His brows furrowed. “How are you supposed to laugh your way to the bank at sabacc without a suspension field?”

Lando slapped his hand against the table, chuckling. “Good question,” he said, a smirk forming at the corner of his mouth, eyes glinting with mischief. “I’ll have to let you in on that little secret one of these days.”


End file.
